Cowpoke Tack didn't just become an idea one day. It had its own little journey as most of us do.
Around 2012 I learned a little leather work while I was at Lamar Community College. I started doing a little for some extra cash but never had the chance to get very serious about it. I had chosen to go to this college for the Equine Business Program with plans to own a barn giving riding lessons and boarding horses. Somewhere between the start and graduation my thoughts shifted to the idea that I needed to train performance horses instead.
I did an internship with a trainer in Colorado and put the leatherwork idea to the side as just a cool thing to know how to do.
In 2015 I moved to Canyon, TX to continue my education and get my bachelor's degree in Equine business. After graduating I got a job cleaning stalls at a reining horse barn in Nazareth , TX at Wilhelm Performance Horses. Sure it was just a stall cleaning job, but it was a job in the industry and I had prayed for a job that would allow me to stay in Canyon. Something just felt right about it and I knew things were going to be ok.
That job quickly transitioned to loping some show horses, to starting colts. Still focused on the performance horse career and having been given all the opportunity I needed to work towards that goal I put all of my focus in to that.
Until, I got the opportunity to begin leasing the barn in Nazareth. My boss was looking to retire and put her focus to a career that gave her more freedom in her personal life. I had a great trainer/mentor willing to help me get clients and build my own training business. Great!
Until suddenly I remembered my other goals. I remembered that someday I wanted a husband and a family and while it's not impossible to raise a family as a female horse trainer it sure is difficult and I wasn't sure that the career would allow me to be as involved in my future family as I wanted to be.
My goals shifted quickly and I was lost. This goal I had worked so hard for was becoming a reality with more opportunity to succeed than I could have ever dreamed I'd have so quickly in to my career, and I found myself saying thank you, but no thank you.
My resume didn't leave me very open for any career other than ag/horses and while I didn't want training as my full time job I still wanted the industry as a part of my life.
The first job I took after leaving Wilhelm Performance horses was store manager of a very slow feed store that honestly needed a lot of improvement. So after rearranging the warehouse there and getting things headed the right direction I found myself sitting there twiddling my thumbs with about 8 customers a day.
I don't do nothing well. If that makes sense. I need to keep busy during the day so that I feel like I have accomplished something and can relax at night. I honestly can't remember what sparked the idea but I decided I wanted to learn to tie rope halters.
3 days later and several poor quality YouTube videos I figured it out.
While working colts at the horse barn I had always noticed how poorly rope halters fit those smaller performance horse faces. So I adjusted the measurements to make a halter that fit a wide variety of the horses I was used to working with, small show colts to larger headed finished horses.
I sold quite a few halters and made several adjustments along the way. I picked leatherworking back up a little and added earrings, belts, and some spur straps to my inventory.
All of this with the idea that someday maybe I'd meet that ranch cowboy to start a family with and I would have a business built up with flexible hours that would allow me to work from anywhere in case we lived too far from town. I remember discussing this exact idea with a few ladies in the church kitchen one day.
I took a trip to visit some friends in south Texas sometime in 2021 and stopped at Teskeys in Weatherford, TX. Their trade days event was going on and walking around I saw someone weaving cinches. I thought surely I can learn to do that too. So I did.
I also liked the idea of something more simple and a little more quiet that I could do once I have kids down the road.
In 2022 I met my soon to be husband. He happened to live in Channing, TX at the time and there's no way I could work a town job and live at that ranch. He moved to Donie, TX shortly after we met and I am able to work a town job while I continue to build up Cowpoke Tack so that someday down the road when we decide to have some little ones I will be able to work from home and still provide some income for our family as well.
It's interesting to see how God worked in all of the details before I even knew how things were going to turn out.
I am so thankful for all of my customers who continue to help me make this dream possible and allow me to have the best of both worlds.
To work a job I enjoy, in an industry that I enjoy, while allowing me to have the flexibility to be the unpaid day worker around the ranch ( if I was paid I think they might fire me most days ) and to focus on the future goal of raising a family with old fashioned morals in this new fashioned world.